


like love

by watfordbird33



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Literary Magazines, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25761682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: For a second I'm frozen, my whole chest filling up with the possibilities. The ramifications. The sheer absurd reality of Simon Snow writing lovestruck prose. And then something deep inside me––my mother's voice, maybe––shouts at me to get my ass in gear.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 23
Kudos: 209





	1. love stories

**Author's Note:**

> As a literary magazine editor myself, I had a good deal of fun writing this little fic! Usual warnings apply--both chapters are heavy on swearing and innuendo, but remarkably light on angst.
> 
> Part 1: Flirty Vowel Elongators, teen romance, the squid emoji, good ferlings to ferl.

So I’m pissed because Dev bailed on me last minute. Even when I bribed him with fries and chicken strips and one of those overpriced milkshakes from the place downtown.

I shouldn’t have had to bribe him, of course. He should have jumped at the chance. He’s a brilliant writer, and I’m not just saying that. He writes these absurd sci-fi stories with every piece in place; I don’t think the guy’s ever met a plothole he couldn’t fill. 

But now he’s scowling at me across the room, and under the table my phone’s buzzing,  _ its not like i can just beat writers block ON COMMAND, BASILTON,  _ and even though usually I’d be on the edge of my seat as Possibelf talks about colonizers’ literary devils taking the form of indigenous groups––

I can’t do it.

I am  _ done. _

I excuse myself to the restroom and spend a few seconds knocking my head dully against a stall door. I’m hoping that I’ll start seeing stars, and that one of those stars will take the form of Watford High’s greatest unacknowledged literary talent. Instead my chosen door whips open, clocking me in the head.

“Baz?”

I sag, wheeze, blink.

Simon Snow is bending over me.

Because of course he is. 

“Are you okay?”

“I,” I say, drawing myself upright, “I…am exemplary.”

He frowns at me. “Why were you knocking? Didn’t you realize the door was locked?”

I didn’t, actually, because I was too busy indulging in some well-deserved wallowing, and also because no one uses the stalls at school unless they’re taking a shit, and no one wants to take a shit at school.

I give Snow the side-eye.

“Okay. Um. I’ll wash my hands,” he says apologetically, stepping away from me. 

That constant voice-over. It kills me every time. I swear he missed his calling as a rom-com heroine. As I’m examining his worried face in the mirror, I feel compelled to make an ass of myself. “I didn’t hear you flush.”

His cheeks color.

I feint like I’m going to step into the stall, and he turns his head like,  _ you wouldn’t dare,  _ and then I do dare, and actually look in the toilet, and there’s nothing there.

“What were you doing in here?” I ask him, stepping back out of the stall.

“Leave me alone,” he says.

“What were you doing?”

And then I see it. The streak of moisture on his cheek. The slight puffiness of his eyes. And this is wholly inappropriate in so,  _ so  _ many ways, but it’s true, too––Simon Snow looks hot when he’s been crying.

His brows knot. Even hotter. I watch him watch me realizing.

“Fuck off,” he says.

“Mmm. It’s a free country.”

“Yeah, so you have the freedom to fuck the fuck off.”

“You first,” I say, indicating the door. “Be my guest.”

He backs toward it, stops with his hand on the knob. “If anyone—if you tell anyone—”

I widen my eyes as much as possible and pretend like I don’t know what he’s talking about. 

“I don’t like you right now,” he blusters, “but if you tell anyone, I’ll  _ hate  _ you. I’ll make your life  _ hell.” _

And yeah. That’s hot, too.

I smile at him.

“Bye, Snow,” I say. And I do a little princess wave, because I’m not a Grimm-Pitch for nothing. I was born and bred for this shit.

He tears out of the bathroom, still glowering. The door’s swinging shut behind him, and I’m about to turn back to the urinals and get this morning’s chai latte out of my system, when something white comes fluttering down and lands at my feet. 

I squint at it. At first I think it’s toilet paper, loosed from the bottom of Snow’s shoe, but as I stoop a little closer to it, I see the dark, close handwriting covering every inch of the page.

Not toilet paper.

I pick it up. 

_ You just want someone to look you in the eye and say your name the way you hear it in your head. Like that soft beginning and then that second swoop. And you just want someone to touch you very gently at the small of your back before their hand slides around and spans your waist.  _

_ Or maybe you just want someone to lie next to you parallel and quiet in the dark until the low pleasurable ache in your stomach expands, so that somewhere between two and three AM you roll over and find yourself entangled––  _

I put it down.

Then I pick it up again.

_ Holy shit. _

Fuck the unspoken rules of stall use at school; I step back into the stall Snow just vacated, lock the door, and drop the toilet seat.

_ No. You just want someone to understand the middle of you where it is dark and a little bit unpleasant; you just want someone to love that dark unpleasant middle of you, to speak of it with kindness, to cup it between two hands like a snow globe on Christmas Eve. _

_ You just want someone to turn your face up to theirs. So tenderly. Their broad palm along the side of your jaw. One of their fingers grazing your earlobe. You just want someone’s eyes to close above yours. You just want someone to pin a kiss between your lips and theirs. _

There’s more. A page and a half more. 

I realize that I’m having trouble catching my breath. I’m sitting on the very edge of the toilet seat, my knees drawn up and jiggling. If I jiggle any farther, I’ll face-plant on the tile floor.

Maybe this isn’t Snow’s writing. Maybe this is just a poem an angsty sophomore wrote and left in the bathroom for someone to find. Maybe this is what Dev churned out to fuck with me after I blew up at him last night.

But the whole thing’s brimming over with Snow’s hopeful, vulnerable stubbornness. His stupid, endearing self. 

It has to be his. 

For a second I’m frozen, my whole chest filling up with the possibilities. The ramifications. The sheer absurd reality of Simon Snow writing lovestruck prose. And then something deep inside me––my mother’s voice, maybe––shouts at me to get my ass in gear. 

I pull out my phone and navigate to Instagram. I’m already logged into the  _ Like Love  _ account, so it only takes a few clicks to pull up direct messages and type in Snow’s username. And if my fingers are shaking, it’s nobody’s business but mine.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Hey. _

I turn off my phone and bury it in my pocket. Then I take out the sheet of paper again. I let myself read one more sentence before I fold the paper back up and close my eyes.

As a rule, I don’t have a problem with seduction. But I’m pretty sure I’ve just signed myself up for the most complicated seduction of my life.

Snow messages me back that evening, while I’m toweling my hair dry after a post-practice shower.

**simon.snow:** _ hi…? _

**simon.snow:** _ What can I do for you? _

For a second, I consider writing something dumb.  _ Send n00ds.  _ Just to get on top of my attraction to him, to play it off. Just to be in control of something again.

But no. I’m the editor of a literary magazine with a Dev-shaped hole in its submissions, and I have a week until deadline. I’m a professional, albeit a desperate one. I’m not going to fuck around.

So instead I go after Snow’s manic pixie dream self in the most efficient way I know how.

**likelovelitmag:** _If you were a model of car, what model would you be?_

There’s a pause.

**simon.snow:** _ I feel like I’m missing something… _

**simon.snow:** _ you might have the wrong account? _

I scowl. Come  _ on,  _ Snow. 

**likelovelitmag:** _ I genuinely want to know. No ulterior motives. _

**simon.snow:** _ Are you just bored? _

**simon.snow:** _ Because I can understand that _

**simon.snow:** _ … _

He actually texts the little dots. Like he’s worried a ten-second pause will make me think he’s ghosted me. It’s textbook Snow.

**simon.snow:** _ …  _

**simon.snow:** _ I’d probably be a tesla _

Of course he would.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Do I get a reason? _

**simon.snow:** _ maybeeee… _

I’m praying for a lightning strike or an errant gunshot or a traumatic chandelier accident, because Snow is a Flirty Vowel Elongator and my life has never been shittier.

**simon.snow:** _ but not before you tell me your pick _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Honda. _

**simon.snow:** _...Do I get a reason? _

I consider.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Nope. _

**simon.snow:** _ Okay well I feel like I still have to explain the Tesla thing. _

**simon.snow:** _ For posterity. _

**simon.snow:** _ if I were a Tesla I could crash myself violently and fuck Elon Musk’s life right up the ass- and that’s really all I want. _

I don’t laugh––I’d never––but I do permit myself a tiny, undignified sniff.

**likelovelitmag:** _ That’s fair. _

**simon.snow:** _ :) _

**simon.snow:** _ Anyway, did that help your boredom? _

**likelovelitmag:** _ It did. _

I stop. Chew my lip.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Stay tuned for more questions- okay? _

And I turn off my phone, fast. But not before his message comes in.

**simon.snow:** _ Okay. _

Dev catches up to me in the hallway the next day.

“Dude,” he says.

“Bro,” I say. Deadpan.

“I was wondering if I could maybe post a question on my Instagram.”

I turn to face him. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because it would be like,  _ hey, Baz Pitch is running this lit mag, and here’s the link _ —so, promo; you’d love it––and then,  _ I want to submit but I’m balls-deep in writer’s block. Any suggestions?” _

“No,” I say.

He squints, taken aback. “No?”

“Why do you need to advertise like that?”

“Uhh. Because it would look good on my college apps? To have all kinds of evidence that I’d been involved with the project? Name-dropping the editor-in-chief? My  _ cousin?” _

There’s a sour taste in my mouth. “Yeah. Don’t use my name.”

“Why?”

“You think I want everyone at Watford knowing I run a soft-porn magazine?”

Dev laughs. “That’s not what it is.” Then he sees I’m serious. “Jesus, Baz, why is it such a big deal?”

“I just don’t want to get shit about it. And you can put it in your college apps without plastering it all over Instagram.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Dev.”

He looks at me.

“Drop it,” I say. Then again. “Drop. It.”

“Baz—”

But I’m already gone.

**likelovelitmag:** _ If you had a time machine, would you go forward in time or back? _

**simon.snow:** _ That is a DUMB QUESTION!!! _

He responds quickly enough to make me think he’s been waiting for me to text him. Which is a stupid thought. But––okay.

**simon.snow:** _ Forward. Obviously. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ It’s not that dumb, apparently, because I’d go back. _

**simon.snow:** _ Are you kidding me right now? _

**simon.snow:** _ What could you possibly gain from going back in time?? _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Lessons for the future. _

**simon.snow:** _ Okay, but why live through it?  _

**simon.snow:** _ Why experience that shit again? _

His tone’s shifted, and it makes me wary. Like he knows exactly what shit he would prefer not to experience again.

**likelovelitmag:** _ I just think that maybe reliving it could help us, like, move on. _

**simon.snow:** _ Believe me when I tell you it doesn’t. _

I swallow the knot in my throat. I shouldn’t ask. I shouldn’t want to know. Because if he knew who I was, he wouldn’t be telling me anything.

I try to remind myself that his blind trust in strangers isn’t my problem. 

**likelovelitmag:** _ What do you mean? _

He doesn’t respond for a while, and I busy myself with chem homework. When his message finally flashes up, it’s shorter than I thought it would be.

**simon.snow:** _ This is probably TMI but I was adopted out of the foster care system. _

**simon.snow:** _ I never had a horrible experience or anything there _

**simon.snow:** _ It was just kind of, a little bit,, hard, and lonely, sometimes. _

**simon.snow:** _ Anyway I end up thinking about it a lot. And I haven’t learned any grand lessons from it, so I would just counsel against thinking that living through stuff again makes it any more useful. _

I just kind of sit there. It’s all I can really think to do.

**likelovelitmag:** _ I’m sorry. _

**simon.snow:** _ No, it’s okay. _

**simon.snow:** _ I didn’t mean to like _

**simon.snow:** _ Idk _

**simon.snow:** _ Anyway I guess you’re weirdly easy to talk to wow _

**simon.snow:** _ I just like blabbed that all over you _

**likelovelitmag:** _ You’re all good. _

I can’t even express how much of a mindfuck it is just to say that. Casually. Like we’re friends, or like we’re heading there.

**simon.snow:** _ anyway I’m gonna try to get some sleep but thanks for listening. _

**simon.snow:** _ I mean it. _

I hesitate. 

**likelovelitmag:** _ Anytime. _

In the hallway on Monday, I’m yanked out of the stream of students and forced bodily against the wall. I’m half a second from punching the lights out of whoever’s just put their hands on me, until my eyes focus and Simon Snow’s panting, rosy-cheeked face comes into view.

It’s official. I am sexually attracted to a boy who wants to fuck Elon Musk’s life right up the ass.

“I have a question,” Snow says.

I sneer. “Is this normal question-asking protocol? Assault?”

Snow takes a step back and frowns. I believe his hesitation. He grew so fast in freshman year that his brain still has trouble catching up with his brawn. It’s very likely he didn’t mean to hit me as hard as he did.

“Did you find anything in the bathroom the other day?” he says.

My heart leaps; my sneer drops. The paper is in my jeans pocket, tight against my hip. I haven’t let myself reach the end of it. Every time my  _ Like Love  _ account gets a text back from Snow, I read another sentence––and then I go splash cold water on my face until my jaw is numb.

“Uh, no?” I say.

“I lost something.”

He folds his arms. I’m definitely not looking at the way his biceps bulge up against his pecs.

“What did you lose?”

He sets his jaw. Blushes. “Just something. Some paper.”

“Well, I didn’t find anything.”

He stares at me.

I hear a defensive note creep into my voice. “I didn’t.” 

“Okaaay,” he says slowly. He takes another step back. “Then I’ll keep looking.”

I manage to recover my sneer. “Yeah. You do that.”

“I will.”

And he takes off, back into the crowd. I adjust my sleeves and clear my throat, trying to reassert my dignity for the benefit of everyone who just watched me get body-slammed by Simon Snow. 

**simon.snow:** _ So next on our list of Casual Questions That Turn Into Explorations Into Simon’s Psyche… _

**simon.snow:** _ (That’s your cue.) _

After that, it’s hard to pretend that he doesn’t care one way or another about talking to me. I write,  _ What do you want to be when you grow up? _

**simon.snow:** _ That’s not even disguised as a Casual Question. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Pressure’s on. _

**simon.snow:** _ You first. _

I prop my chin on my fist and grimace until my neck muscles strain.

**likelovelitmag:** _ My dad and stepmom want me to be a doctor. _

**simon.snow:** _ That wasn’t the question. _

**likelovelitmag:** _Your turn._

**simon.snow:** _ You’re kind of bad at this, but okay. _

**simon.snow:** _ It would be really cool to help make foster kids’ lives less shitty. _

**simon.snow:** _ So, social worker, I think. I can’t really afford anything other than in-state, but there are some good programs. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ That’s really cool. _

It is.

**simon.snow:** _ I try. :) _

**simon.snow:** _ Anyway, what’s your real answer? _

I’m about to blow him off, but as I’m glancing back to the screen, I get stuck on the big red circle I’ve made around the submission deadline. 

**likelovelitmag:** _ Don’t laugh. _

**simon.snow:** _ I’d never! _

**likelovelitmag:** _ likelovelitmag.org _

Eight minutes until his next message. I slide down from my desk chair in a fit of nervous energy. I hope to God he’s spent those eight minutes perusing the whole site.

**simon.snow:** _ Is that like, yours? Like YOUR magazine?? _

**likelovelitmag:** _ It is. _

I can’t tell what he is. Excited? Upset? I fidget on the floor.

**simon.snow:** _ It’s really beautiful. _

Is he joking?

**likelovelitmag:** _ Thanks _

**simon.snow:** _ That’s such a specifically lovely concept, too, love stories from teenagers. _

**simon.snow:** _ Is that what you want to do? Like editing or compiling or some sort of publishing-writing-related field? _

I exhale.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Yeah. _

**simon.snow:** _Do it!!_

I want to be sarcastic, like,  _ oh, now that I’ve got your blessing, I’ll get right to it!  _ but I actually do feel kind of—lighter. Like his encouragement means something. I have to swallow hard.

**simon.snow:** _ Is  _ Like Love  _ taking submissions? Right now? _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Actually, we are. Someone bailed last minute, so we’re looking for a pretty substantial piece. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Do you know anyone who might be interested? _

If I pull this off, I want a medal.

**simon.snow:** _ Uh I might. _

**simon.snow:** _ Let me think about it. _

“Mr. Pitch!”

Yeah. This is  _ so  _ not what I need right now.

I step away from the door of my English classroom, hoist my backpack higher on my shoulders, and aim a pinched smile toward my guidance counselor, who’s hurrying toward me at warp speed.

“I’m glad I caught you!” she shrills, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “I’m booked solid for  _ weeks, _ thanks to you seniors, so I didn’t want to have to squeeze you in during lunch or something when all I had was a tiny question about your portfolio…”

My portfolio?

That means––

“I’m not sure you should include the whole website?” she says. And she’s loud; heads are turning. I can feel my face getting hot. “Because what they’re really going to want to see is your work specifically, and if you didn’t submit anything to the magazine, it’s going to be tricky to explain the concept––like, how much did you really care about creating a literary magazine entirely about teen romance when you didn’t actually submit?”

There’s blood rushing in my ears. I shrug her arm off my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I manage; “bathroom––”

She’s taken aback, but I ignore her. I hurtle down the hall. I dodge students and duck Sadie Hawkins banners. I don’t stop sweating until I’ve tucked myself in under the stairs. 

And then I let the fear hit me.

Did anyone hear her?

Does anyone know?

I imagine the whispers and the open-mouthed laughs and the mocking emails piling up in the  _ Like Love  _ inbox. Snow’s face, shocked and betrayed.

I hear my counselor’s dopy voice saying  _ teen romance,  _ like, nine hundred times. Like it’s some sort of fucking song. 

It takes me a long time to start breathing normally again.

Two days later, I’m lying naked in bed at 5 PM, because I have no class. Ask anyone. Ask Snow’s best friend, Penelope Bunce, and get a fucking manifesto on it. I’ve been texting Snow for the past two hours, and his flirty texts are coming so thick and fast that I’ve had to limit myself to reading one sentence of his bathroom writing every thirty messages. Even so, I’m almost at the end of the first page. 

**simon.snow:** _ so I have something to confess!!!!! _

**simon.snow:** _ or maybe ask haha!!!! _

I think he’s nervous. The exclamation points kind of gave it away.

I roll over onto my stomach, prop myself up on my elbows, and tap into the messages box.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Do tell. _

**simon.snow:** _ I _

**simon.snow:** _ I write _

**simon.snow:** _ Stories _

**simon.snow:** _ Love stories _

**simon.snow:** _ I want to submit. _

**simon.snow:** _ Like I’ve never really wanted to do anything that brave before but your magazine is so cool and I _

**simon.snow:** _ guess I just want to be a part of it. _

**simon.snow:** _ Is that okay? _

I send him the emoji that’s blowing on the party popper. Just because I’m not me right now, and so it doesn’t matter if my emoji usage is on-brand or not.

**likelovelitmag:** _ That’s perfect. _

He doesn’t bring it up again. For a day. And then two days. I spend most of my time pacing, trying not to force the issue. In the meantime, I ignore Dev’s texts. He’s complaining that I won’t attach my name to the magazine. He’s asking if he has to write a love story. Maybe he’d be able to break free of writer’s block, he theorizes, if I’d let him write about robots destroying the Earth. 

Like I’ll just be like,  _ Sure! I know our mission statement says we’re a magazine for stories about love of all kinds, but who cares? I’ll just set aside that requirement. Anything for you, beloved cousin, light of my fucking life!  _

On the third day, I get a message from Snow. But it’s not to the  _ Like Love  _ account. It’s to my personal.

**simon.snow:** _ Meet me behind the cafeteria. _

Very dramatic. Very Snow. I almost feel bad when I have to ruin it by texting,  _ When? _

**simon.snow:** _ Lunch. _

I’m not sure why I go, but I do, abandoning the usual scramble of the cafeteria for the sketchy smokers’ haven outside. Snow is wearing a blue sweatshirt that matches his eyes. He looks good enough to eat. Every once in a while––all the time––I wonder if it would be worth it to kiss him first, ask questions later.

“I’m going to ask you again,” he says, standing up. His hands are balled into fists. 

“Do,” I say.

He’s not amused. “Did you find something in the bathroom last week?”

“This again?” I roll my eyes and sigh. I know what I look like when I roll my eyes––debauched. It’s enough to set most people on edge; it absolutely  _ wrecks  _ Snow. I watch him fidget with some satisfaction. “No, Snow. I didn’t.”

He’s fish-mouthed, glancing anxiously to either side. “I wasn’t going to tell you this,” he says, dropping his voice. “But I need to tell you what was on that paper. So if you do find it––or if you hear of someone who has it––you can get it back to me.”

“It must be something good,” I say, as if all that goodness isn’t pressed flat against my ass. The last line I read was,  _ And maybe when you both come down from it, that crest of pleasure, that pulse-point of feeling, you’ll lie there legs tangled, like there is no space but the space you share. _ I read it eight times, trying to swallow away the whatever-it-was that rose into my throat. “Passwords?”

“No.”

“Your diary?”

“No-o-o.”

I raise an eyebrow expectantly.

He beckons me closer. So I go, fool that I am. Up close, he smells impossibly good. Cologne, and something softer––maybe tea?––and underneath that just a layer of  _ Snow.  _ Warm and sleepy. I look down into his stupid-blue eyes.

“I write sometimes,” he whispers.

I wait.

“Just about—stuff.”

I keep waiting. It’s weird to hear it twice.

“Romantic stuff.”

That’s his grand finale. He steps away, and I can practically see him dusting off his hands.

“Um,” I say.

He nearly jumps out of his skin. “Shhhh,” he hisses. Like anyone’s going to care. The only other person out here is the janitor, and he’s stoned and doesn’t speak anything but Russian. “I’m just saying. If you find something. That’s like. Romantic writing. Don’t read any further than, like, the first sentence. That’s what I lost.”

I can’t believe he admitted it. I feign delight. “Why, Snow.”

His face is wrinkled in every possible wrinkle-able spot.

“That’s  _ lovely,”  _ I say.

“Shut it.” He puffs out his chest. “I’m telling you this in confidence. I’m appealing to your basic standards of human decency. I’m trusting you.”

I lift my hands, like,  _ there’s your mistake. _

“I’m going to give you my number,” he says sternly, and my traitorous heart soars. “I want you to tell me if you hear anything.”

I’m holding my phone in my left hand, and with an endearing certainty, he reaches forward and plucks it out of my grasp. Then he frowns down at the screen. 

“You’ll need my password,” I suggest.

He hands it back to me. I enter my password, make sure my Instagram notifications are turned off, and open the contacts app for him. When he returns my phone, there’s a new entry:  _ Simon Sonw. _ And a squid emoji. 

He’s the biggest mess I’ve ever met.

“We’re partners now,” he says. “Detectives.” 

And he actually extends his hand for me to shake. As if shaking hands is something that I, Basilton Grimm-Pitch, would reasonably be expected to do with Simon Snow. 

But then somehow I’m shaking. And he’s grinning. And through his grin he’s saying “Deal?”

And me––I’m lying. I’m saying “Deal” right back. 

**Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _ I found it. _

I send him a romance-novel screenshot I found on the Internet.  _ His hot hand moved up her thigh...her mouth parted in delighted ecstasy... _

**Simon Sonw:** _ I’d never use a word like “moved.” _

**Simon Sonw:** _ “crept” _

**Simon Sonw:** _ “slithered” _

**Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _ Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. _

**Simon Sonw:** _ That would be quite the feat. _

It’s a whole wild Thing, texting Snow like I’m two different people. Right after he texted Baz me, he finally got back to  _ Like Love _ me, writing,  _ How do I submit? _ I didn’t bother to inform him that all the information was on the website. I kept up our back-and-forth, walking him through the process from beginning to end.

Every morning, I permit myself a tiny, Grimm-Pitch-approved fist pump. Because there are only a few days until the deadline. And Snow’s on board to be the centerpiece of  _ Like Love _ ’s fourth issue. And I managed to do it all without exposing myself and my magazine to a torrent of high school hate.

I text Dev.

**Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _ Hi, hello, no need to grovel at my feet. Wouldn’t take your submission now even if you paid me. _

**Dev Grimm:** _ Ok rlly???  _

**Dev Grimm:** _ ur fucking magazines going 2 flop, who else is going to write u something long enough in time? _

**Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _ I know a guy. _

I do know a guy—apparently better than I thought. Two days before the deadline, my phone lights up, shouting that  **simon.snow** wants to video chat with my  _ Like Love  _ account. I’m in such a hurry to decline the request that I almost click  _ accept.  _

He texts me after a few seconds.

**simon.snow:** _ How explicit can my submission be? _

With a little self-deprecating emoji. Like his question hasn’t just made me get hard.

I’m tempted to lie, but instead I quote our website.  _ No gratuitous sexual content. We reserve the right to reject any submissions we feel violate our content guidelines or are unfit for our magazine. _

He replies with a winky face.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Nothing that would scandalize me. _

**simon.snow:** _ I’m guessing it wouldn’t take much. _

And that’s fucking wild. That I’ve come across as a person who could be easily scandalized. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. 

**simon.snow:** _ Hey. _

**simon.snow:** _ Casual Questions That Turn Into Explorations Into Simon’s Psyche: how do you feel about love? _

It’s almost three AM. I squint at my phone. 

**likelovelitmag:** _ Uh, _

**likelovelitmag:** _ not sure if you noticed but I have a lit mag devoted entirely to stories about love ahahah so svgbhdjhjdfj _

I don’t keysmash unless I’ve hit a certain level of exhaustion. Dimly I recognize that if Snow pushed right now, he could topple all my walls.

**likelovelitmag:** _ I feel very good about it. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Very solid. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Yup. _

**simon.snow:** _ Are you drunk? _

**likelovelitmag:** _ Only on sleep. _

That’s not quite right.

**likelovelitmag:** _ Or the lack thereof I guess. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ But tell me Simon Sno: How do YOU ferl about love? _

**simon.snow:** _ I ferl similarly good about love. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ It’s a good ferling to ferl. _

**likelovelitmag:** _ May I ask what prompted this ferling ? _

**simon.snow:** _ Just that specific kind of 3 AM loneliness. _

**simon.snow:** _ Or maybe it’s more of an all-around foster care loneliness because sometimes I get it at 11 AM in school bathrooms which is really inconvenient especially when _

**simon.snow:** _ Well _

**simon.snow:** _ Never mind. _

11 AM in school bathrooms?

I’m pretty sure I’m missing subtext that I’d be able to pick up on if it weren’t an hour from dawn.

**likelovelitmag:** _ You’re a very good person and shouyldn’t have to ferl all-around foster care loneliness in school bathrooms at 11 AM _

**simon.snow:** _ … _

**simon.snow:** _ … _

I’m fighting a losing battle to keep my eyes open.

**simon.snow:** _ I wish I knew you in real life _

_ That  _ opens my eyes. 

I stare at the text. Then I look away. Then I look back. It hasn’t disappeared.

Three dots.

**simon.snow:** _ Sorry ahahhha it’s super late. goodnight!! :) _

It takes me a long time to find the energy to text him a goodnight. After I do, I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. It’s really too late to try to make sense of the feeling that’s gathering between my ribs, but I try to anyway.


	2. telling truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2: Daveed Diggs, homoerotic purposes, inconvenient deer, a little bit in love.

Here’s the thing about Penelope Bunce. 

I’m not afraid of her. Not really. 

Like, hardly at all.

“Hello, Basil,” she says. She’s trapped me between my third and fourth periods, and she grins her wolflike grin at me from behind enormous purple glasses. This year, she has dark blue hair. She’s magnificent. She’s murderous.

“Bunce,” I say. I hope the shake in my voice isn’t noticeable. “What can I do for you?”

She puts a hand on her hip. “Simon lets you push him around.”

“Ahh,” I say. I do not say, _Actually,_ Snow _pushes_ me _around, because he’s beautiful and brave and I hate that I’d do anything for him, and also he has like fifty pounds of solid muscle on my scrawny ass._

“I’m not the type to be pushed around.” 

“No.”

“No,” she agrees. “That’s why I’ve enlisted myself to ask you a few questions on Simon’s behalf.”

I fold my arms across my chest, ostensibly to look muscular and badass and actually because it makes me feel a little safer. I’m pretty sure she could carve my heart out with her acrylics.

“Did you find something in the bathroom after he left? Last week?”

“Does _everyone_ know about our rendezvous in the loo?” I channel Daveed Diggs and press a scandalized hand to my mouth.

“Save it.”

“I’m sorry…” I check my nails. I make my voice as high and fruity as it will go. “What was your question again?”

She just stares me down. And––yeah. I crack.

“No.”

“You didn’t find anything?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“Not even a tiny scrap of paper?”

“Bunce, I’m familiar with what he lost––”

“Not even a tiny scrap of paper that you tucked into your jeans pocket for safekeeping?”

She’s looking at my jeans pocket. I fight the urge to clap my hand over it. 

“Fully,” she says, “fully, _fully_ intending to return that tiny scrap of paper to its rightful owner as soon as possible?”

And then she takes a step toward me. With her left hand curled into something resembling a claw.

I have never been so aware of my fleeting mortal life.

“Um…”

“So help me, God,” she says, almost pleasantly, “I will chew you up and spit you out.”

There’s this moment where I see it coming, like a car accident. Inexorable. I’m about to start talking, and once I start, I’m not going to be able to stop.

“Okay,” I say. I take the piece of paper out of my pocket. I recross my arms, far enough away from Bunce that she’d have to make an unladylike lunge for the paper trapped in my left hand. “I found something in the bathroom.”

“Good man,” she says, not like she means it. “Give it to me.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No.”

She cocks her head.

“I want to make something clear,” I say. I unfold my arms and sort of shake them out, so they’ll stop trembling. “I did not keep this paper for disturbing or homoerotic purposes.”

She cocks her head further. She looks like a pigeon going after a bit of seed.

“When you say that,” she says, sounding mildly concerned, “you know, when you say that, it makes me think––”

“I kept this paper because I run a literary magazine.”

Her head snaps back to its normal tilt.

“What?” she says.

“I run a literary magazine,” I repeat. And it’s so scary and so thrilling to say it out loud. To shape my mouth around the words. “It’s called _Like Love._ It’s composed entirely of love stories. When I saw the paper, I’d just lost a big submission for this upcoming issue, so I decided I’d get Snow to submit instead.”

Bunce is far too classy to look shocked, but she does open her mouth and then close it very slowly. It looks a little like she’s about to vomit all over me. But again. Too classy.

“So I messaged him,” I say. 

“He didn’t mention this,” she says.

“I messaged him from the _Like Love_ account. And we––talked, and he’s going to submit now, which is––great––” I’ve been reduced to a stammering middle schooler. “And, you know, he’s reached out to me in real life––or––our real selves––about the paper he’d lost, and I’ve been––planning to give it back to him. I just hadn’t figured out how.”

Bunce is looking at me weirdly. At first I think she’s mad. Then I think she’s pleased. Then I realize she’s not looking at me at all. She’s staring over my shoulder, at something just behind me.

I have that dumbass horror-movie feeling, like I’ll turn around and find all my classmates dead. So I do the accordingly dumbass horror-movie thing and turn around.

Snow’s standing behind me.

He looks at me, then at the paper in my hand. And his face has the most crushed, devastated expression I’ve ever seen. 

“Snow,” I say, stupidly. “I can—”

He brings his gaze back up to mine. It’s like looking at a puppy I’ve just kicked.

I try again. “Snow…”

But it’s too late. He turns on his heel and takes off down the hall.

I give the paper back to Penelope. She makes a big show out of folding it up, demonstrating how pure she is and how she’d never ever once consider reading anything without Snow’s permission. I want to hate her, but the only person I really hate is myself.

Lying about finding Snow’s writing? That was shitty of me. Shittier is the way I flirted with him as _Like Love._ He told me stuff about foster care, about loneliness, about his future. And I let him. Even knowing he’d never tell real-me, I let him. 

I skip the rest of the school day and walk home. My stepmom’s home with the littlest kids, so instead of going inside, I circle around to the back of the house, ease down to hands and knees, and splay myself out on my stomach under the kitchen window. I push the side of my face into the dirt. I close my eyes and breathe.

When I’m done being As Angsty As Possible, I downgrade to Very Angsty. I sit in my room, scrolling up through Snow’s and my conversation. I scroll up to our first interaction, and then I scroll back down.

 **simon.snow:** _I have to tell you something._

 **simon.snow:** _I’m really self-conscious about my writing. I feel like it says a lot about me that I don’t want people to know._

 **simon.snow:** _But I_

 **simon.snow:** _shoot_

 **simon.snow:** _I don’t know what the best way to say this is so I’ll just say it; I hope it isn’t too much_

 **simon.snow:** _I want you to know._

My throat tightens. I clench both my fists until my knuckles go white.

 **simon.snow:** _Anyway, I’m almost done. I’m going to submit tomorrow._

That was yesterday… 

A chasm opens in my chest.

The submission deadline for the next issue comes and goes. I spend most of my time in my room, hunched in front of my computer, playing with graphic design and organization in a fleeting attempt to bulk up the magazine. I even try writing something myself––to fill in the gaps, to please my counselor. It’s disastrous. There’s a reason I stick to publishing.

Eventually, I give up. The issue’s more of a pamphlet than a magazine, populated by filler that would only have made sense around a grand story in the middle. I check my phone approximately six times a minute. Nothing from Snow. Not even an emoji as vile as I deserve.

At four o’clock, a few days into my self-imposed quarantine, my phone buzzes harshly against my leg. I almost kill my future children in my rush to pick it up.

 **Penelope Bunce:** _Did you read all the way to the end?_

I sag, disappointed. Then read the text again.

 **Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _What?_

 **Penelope Bunce:** _Did you read. To the end. Of Simon’s writing._

 **Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _Um? No?_

 **Baz Grimm-Pitch:** _Look, if this is some sort of misguided attempt to compound my guilt, I really don’t need it._

 **Penelope Bunce:** _Jesus Christ._

Three dots. Nothing. I wait, chewing on my fingernails. Three dots.

Downstairs, the doorbell rings.

“Basilton!” my stepmom calls up the stairs. “It’s for you!”

I am not expecting company of any kind. In fact, what I’d most like is to sink under my covers and close my eyes. But I have a reputation to uphold, so I finger-comb my hair, grin fiercely at myself in the mirror, and make my way downstairs.

Bunce is standing in my front hall.

I look at my phone, then at her, then at my phone again. The three dots are gone.

“I was parked outside,” she says, gesturing.

I doubt this. I’m pretty sure I summoned her with my mind. Like, _speak-of-the-devil_ type shit _._

“Can we talk?” she says.

We go out to my front porch, and sit at the end, near the porch swing, where my stepmom can’t eavesdrop on us. Not that she would. Bunce puts her hands in her lap.

“Simon’s really hurt,” she says.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“I don’t think I have to tell you that.”

“Yeah. No.” I don’t know what to say, so I take a deep breath and go for honesty. “I let him think I was someone I wasn’t. He has every right to hate me.”

“He does,” she says. “But there’s more. Something you should know. I don’t think it’s fair to either you or Simon to just leave you hanging on this.”

I try not to look like a person who’s been left hanging. 

“I talked to him today,” she says, “and he made me read all the way to the end of the paper. You know how it’s all, _you just want someone?”_

Yes. I do.

“By the end, it’s not a someone anymore. He starts pointing out specific details.”

My heart starts pounding. I know where this is going. I didn’t just intercept a longing braindump; I intercepted a _love letter._ And so Snow now thinks that I know the name of whatever girl he’s in love with, and that in classic dick style, I’m planning to go and tell her––or maybe even ask her out before he can.

Bunce is staring at me like she wants me to say something. 

“What details?” I say. 

She sighs. Wriggles in her seat, readjusts, and sighs again. “Ba-a-silton,” she says. As if I’ve disappointed her immeasurably.

“What details?”

She checks them off on her fingers. “Black hair. Gray eyes. Pale. Tall. Sarcastic…” 

She’s still going, but I’m stuck on the first few. Trying to think of a girl at school who meets the description. The only one I can think of is Elspeth, who plays field hockey and leads Sexuality And Gender Alliance meetings. It seems unlikely that Snow wouldn’t know she’s gay.

Bunce snaps her fingers in my face.

“Elspeth?” I say.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Bunce truly dumbstruck. Her mouth works, like she’s swallowing something that doesn’t agree with her. It’s kind of a beautiful sight.

“I thought you were supposed to be smart,” she says.

“I am smart.”

“No. You’re a massive fucking idiot. What the hell? _Elspeth?_ Isn’t she gay?”

“She—”

Bunce reaches over and whacks me on the leg. Like, gets her whole fist into the meat of my lower thigh. I almost shriek. It _hurts._

“He wrote about _you,_ Basil!”

It’s like––

It’s like–– 

It’s like when you throw a rock in a lake, and for a second there’s only the small plop of entry, and then the ripples start, and widen, and widen, and widen, until the whole lake is nothing but a mass of waves.

First the disbelief. Then the exhilaration. Then the slamming home of what I’ve really done to Snow. 

“Uh,” I say.

Bunce rolls her eyes. “For Christ’s sake,” she says. Then she stands up. “I just thought you should know. Because Simon thinks you read to the end. He thinks you know how he feels about you, and you _still_ decided to troll him. He thinks you’re even more of a coward than you actually are.” She pauses. “And that’s saying something.”

I’m having trouble finding words.

“I’ll let you stew, shall I?” she says.

_We are_ Like Love, _an online compilation of teenagers’ most heartfelt love stories. We’re looking for star-crossed romance, for desperate declarations, and for poems and musings on the power of desire. Above all, we provide an outlet for the beautiful, madcap exploration of teenage love._

I stare at our mission statement until my eyes cross.

_Desperate declarations._

I think about Snow: _I ferl similarly good about love._ And my counselor: _How much did you really care?_ And Bunce: _He thinks you’re even more of a coward than you actually are._

I reach for my phone. I open Instagram. I swipe right and start typing.

And then I leave my room, keys in hand, ducking past my stepmom and my half-sister on the landing before they have enough time to ask me where I’m going. I barrel out of the front door and throw myself into the driver’s seat of my dad’s beat-up sedan.

I tap through to the school directory. Key Snow’s address into Google Maps.

It takes me ten minutes to get there. I don’t really speed. I just take some risks I ordinarily wouldn’t. Like blowing past a cyclist when there’s really not room to pass. And swerving instead of slowing down for an inconvenient deer. 

Snow lives in a small, butter-yellow cottage on the edge of town. Gravel road, picket fence. It’s perfect for him. All it needs are flower baskets on the porch and sprightly fawns cavorting on the lawn.

I knock hard enough to bruise my hand.

“Coming!” he yells, and there are footsteps on the stairs. My stomach twists. Like I’m only just now realizing what I’m about to do.

The door opens.

“Hi,” I say, to his startled face.

“Baz?” he says.

“Can I come in?”

He’s just looking at me. It’s weird. I shift a bit, because there are so many emotions on his face. Worry and curiosity and hurt and something else––something I don’t want to think about too much. Something I’m scared to name.

“Yeah,” he says. He steps back from the door and lets me in.

We sit in his living room. There are those little embroidered pictures all over the wall––samplers. Except instead of saying sampler-appropriate things, they say, _Fuck the Patriarchy._ There’s one with a mug that’s labeled _Men’s Tears._

I’m deeply impressed by the Snows’ decorative tastes. 

“You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here,” I say.

Snow doesn’t say anything.

“I should start by saying––” I almost can’t do it. “I should start by apologizing.”

Snow’s face does this strange half-crumple, half-lift. Like he’s glad I’m sorry, but fearful for what’s coming next.

I hasten to elaborate. “I’m sorry. For not telling you. About anything. Like who I really was. And that I actually had your paper. That was really shitty of me.”

He inclines his head a little bit.

“So…yeah.”

I’ve lost my momentum.

He glances up at me, then away, and something shutters across his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “Well, cool. You’re forgiven. I mean, I appreciate you saying that.” He makes as if to stand. “That’s big of you. Uh—”

“Wait.”

Somehow my hand is on his arm. Not sure how that happened. We both look at it.

“Wait,” I repeat, quieter, and tug at his wrist a little, which maybe isn’t my best move, but I’m under a lot of stress right now. “I have more.”

He sits down again, slowly, and I let go of his arm. 

“I also think you should probably know that I didn’t––um. Read to the end.”

His eyebrows go up. Then his mouth pulls to the side. He kind of sinks forward, putting his elbows on his knees. _“Oh,”_ he says. “Oh. I thought you had.”

“Yeah, I mean, I read most of it, but not the end. I’m sorry for reading it, too,” I add. “Also shitty.” I want him to look at me again, but he’s looking at the floor. “But—um, Bunce came to see me today. And told me. That you thought that I’d read the whole thing.”

He’s very still.

“Snow…”

He sits up. “She told you what it said?”

I nod.

Then there’s this horrible moment of silence, where I’m pretty confident we’re both trying to say more or less the same thing, but neither of us can get it out.

I’m the first to manage anything constructive. I shove my phone into my hand.

“What?” he says, eyeing it.

“Go to Instagram.”

He goes. My story icon’s lighting up, so he clicks on it. Even from here, I can see the paragraphs I wrote flash across the screen. He holds his thumb against the screen to keep them there.

And he reads them. Start to finish.

 _I’m the publisher and editor-in-chief of an online literary magazine. We only take stories about love. They’re beautiful. Messy. Sometimes explicit. I’ve been running_ Like Love _for a year, and I’ve been too freaked out by what people from school would think to ever reveal myself as the person behind it._

_But recently, I talked to someone who I should have been honest with. And I realized that by caring what people thought, I was undermining the whole purpose of my magazine._

_Our contributors write about declarations. About bold gestures. About the power of love. When people are in love––with a person, idea, or place––they don’t want to keep it quiet. They want to shout it from the rooftops._

_Well, I’m in love with_ Like Love. _I’m proud of my role in it. I’m ashamed of the way I hid. And I’m devastated that my fear kept me from being honest with the smart, funny, fabulous person I’ve been talking to._

_Now that I’m telling truths again, I think I might be a little bit in love with them, too._

My phone slips right through Snow’s fingers and hits the floor.

“I know it’s a lot,” I say.

“It’s––”

I’m already prepared to leave. I’m just waiting for him to fill in the blank, to say, _It’s too much._

Instead, he says, “I didn’t think you were serious. About the magazine.”

“What?”

“Like, when I heard you and Penny––when I found out it was you, texting me––I just thought you’d made up some whole awful elaborate scheme.”

I take a breath, then let it out. “No,” I say. “I mean, it’s real.”

Snow looks back at my phone where it lies between his feet. “So I ruined this issue,” he says, very quietly.

“No.”

“I didn’t submit.”

I shrug.

“Is there still time?”

“There’s…” I think about deadlines. Rearrange them in my head. I’m hesitant, and then I’m not. “Yup,” I say. “There’s still time.”

“I want to change a few things about the story I was going to submit.”

“That’s okay.”

“Friday?”

“Friday will work.”

I don’t dance––I have two left feet and a reputation to uphold––but right now, I feel like I’m dancing. Like we both are. Like we’re spinning circles around what we mean to say.

He stands up.

“Baz?” he says.

“Simon?” I say.

“Can you stand up?” he says.

I do.

He takes one step toward me, and then another. And I feel like I do every time I’m near him. Like there’s a breath I’m still trying to take.

“I was scared,” he says, “because I told you all that shit about myself, and you didn’t seem to care. But now I feel like––we were both in this impossible position with each other. Like maybe I shouldn’t have just dumped that on someone I thought was a stranger. And like maybe I should have been more honest in real life. Instead of writing creepy fanfiction about you.”

“I liked your creepy fanfiction,” I say. “Couldn’t you tell?”

He half-smiles. And then his smile falls away and he’s serious again. “Did you mean it?” he says.

“What I wrote?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. I did. Did you?”

He shakes his head. “Do you even have to ask?”

I put my hands on his hips, just to see what it’s like. It turns out to be a good decision. The best part is the sound that leaves his throat when I slide my hands around to his back and pull him close.

“Can I kiss you?” he says breathlessly.

I smile at him. Head-on. “Do you even have to ask?” 

He submits the story he left on the floor of the bathroom. Edited, fleshed-out, but more or less the same. Except there’s a postscript.

_But you don’t have to want anymore. Because you have someone who touches you like you’re the strongest and most breakable thing on Earth. Because you have someone who rolls his eyes at you. Because you have someone who’s willing to make cheesy declarations on social media for you. Because you have someone who likes you like you’ve always wanted to be liked. Someone who likes you like love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep making art. Especially in these times.


End file.
